Never underestimate the power of “just enough”!

I believe that one of the reasons that people do not attempt to find their leadership voice is that they are afraid it will call upon them to do great things, big things, life changing things . . . . and sometimes that is true. But I was thinking out loud the other day that often it is the small things leaders do that make the biggest impact. The “just enough” things!

I have been blessed to have a career that allows me to work with and, hopefully, impact others in a very positive way. I will admit that I often get caught up in the “grand gesture” as a metric of leadership success. That time when I did that big thing, that life changing thing (and thankfully, there have been a few of those!). But more often than not, when I hear from a former or current student or client, they often refer to that small thing that made a big difference. A small favor here, some extra time there, a small inconvenience on my part or just a simple encouragement. To be honest I probably did not give it much further thought but the point is that I did just enough to help that individual get to the next level. Once there, another leader would do a little more to help that person keep moving on and up. See how this works? Your doing just what you can do is more than enough to help an individual reach their eventual goal or success!

Now you may be thinking, how could all these small things done by a number of people create such eventual impacts, that seems just so random? On the surface, you may be right but when you drill down on the following three-part equation, it makes sense.

Success is Collaborative – many of us have no idea as to the true reach of our leadership. A segment of Cheryl Bachelder’s great book, Dare to Serve, demonstrates this. These days, we spend more time with our work relationships than we do our own families. Think about the number of colleagues or direct reports you have and how many hours a week you spend with them. Then multiply that number by 50 weeks per year and you will be shocked. So. let’s say you have a team of 20 X 40 hours a week X 50 weeks per year, that gives you 40,000 hours of leadership reach!  That is a lot of time for collaboration. A lot of time to do small favors, quick guidance, an email of encouragement, or some just in time learning. ALL of this happens in the small day to day collaborations we experience but all that adds up to thousands of hours of direct assistance!

Success is Sequential – in the book, The One Thing, by Gary Keller (of Keller-Williamson Reality) and Jay Papasan, the authors propose that focusing on one thing at a time leads to big results because success is sequential. This is true for how we learn, grow, and succeed. We learn and are equipped by one leader that allows us to proceed to the next level. There, another leader further equips us for the next thing and so forth and so on. Your unique just enough contribution, doing what you could when you could, empowered someone else to proceed. I guarantee if you think about it, you can trace back your current success to a series of past events and people that enabled you to be where you are now!

Success is Cumulative – our success in life is made up of many different components. It was not just one person, or book, or class. Success is a cumulative combination of many things. A favor here, a small promotion there, or time with an encouraging person. It all starts to add up! We collect the skills, knowledge, and qualities that have been provided to us in some form or fashion. When all of that is combined, you get the capable person you are today! Even better this cycle of “just enough” leadership repeats itself time and time again.

You see, we are all part of each other’s success equation. Or at least we can be if we want to be. It does not take much, just enough to add to the progression of opportunities we gift to each other. I can honestly say that any success I have had in life is due to the help of other people. Some of their contributions were big and some were small but in the final analysis, it ALL mattered and it all made an impact. I encourage you to never doubt the power of just enough leadership. It will not take much, so what are you waiting for? Do you need my permission? Fine, you have it. I am licensed in Georgia, Florida, and North Carolina to provide such dispensations!

As always if I can help you and the people you associate with Get Better, Be Ready and LEAD OUT LOUD, I invite you to contact me.

Yours in leadership,

Bill Faulkner

Independent Coach, Speaker, and Trainer with the John Maxwell Team ^TM

Email = bill@outloudinc.com

Visit our website at: www.outloudinc.com

For more information on the John Maxwell Team, please visit

http://www.johncmaxwellgroup.com/williamfaulkner/

Feel free to “LIKE” our FB Page www.facebook.com/outloudinc

(Your Name Here) Inc. You already have a personal brand, but is it the one you want?

In my experience, I have never known of a business or university that does not obsess over its brand. The larger the organization, the more it spends on crafting, maintaining, and protecting its brand and reputation. In my training and coaching work, I certainly encourage an organization to pay attention to its brand, but you may have never considered that such strategies apply to you as an individual leader, contributor, or applicant. In other words, you already have a brand, whether you realize or not. What I am asking you to think out loud about is it the one you want?

In Robert Quinn’s great book, Building the Bridge As You Walk On It, he both reminds and challenges us that we are constantly communicating about ourselves. Everything we do, say, post, wear, etc. communicates volumes about who we are, what we can do, and what is important to us. Even if you do not fully realize or even want to believe it, you are your brand 24/7, 365 days a year. So, for (Your Name Here) Incorporated is the brand you projecting the one you want? Is it accurately capturing what you want others to know about you? Are you shaping and controlling your personal brand or are you leaving it to chance, the opinion of others, or the whims of social media? I can guarantee you a Fortune 500 company (or even a just fortunate to have the doors open business) is not leaving such an important element to chance, so why are you?

It is my belief that as leaders, solo/intra/entre/preneurs, or professionals ready for that next level, we have to think of ourselves as a corporate entity, in other words, (Your Name Here) Incorporated. And like any major corporation, you must be intentional about crafting and building your personal brand in three main arenas:

Brand Aspiration – Brand aspiration is the brand you want but may not necessarily have at the present time. Essentially, if you aspire to be something, it is because you are attempting to influence something (i.e. team members, potential clients, or prospective employers). To determine what you aspire to be or influence, reflect on the following questions:

• How are you attempting to influence your market?
• How do you know when you are successful?
• How can you expand your influence?

Once you know the answers to the above, you can start to expand your influence through my adaptation of the typical sales funnel. I use an inverted Pyramid of Influence to encourage you to start with networking and other efforts so that your targets even have KNOWLEDGE of you – just basic name recognition. Once they know of you, how can you demonstrate that you are RELEVANT to their needs or problems? Are you experienced in what a potential new employer is looking for? Do you offer a service or skill applicable to a particular industry? Next, how can you prove there is a direct ADVANTAGE to working with or hiring you? Do you post helpful information, are you recognized as an expert through internal and professional association presentations? Do current or former clients act as brand ambassadors for you by referring you to others? Finally, if you pay close attention to all the above, you should then be making critical CONNECTIONS that allow you to influence and impact others.

Brand Status (Identity) – there is a great deal of content out there related to strategies for discovering your Brand Identity. Brand Status or Identity is essentially a real-time snapshot of:

• What you KNOW
• What you can DO
• Who you ARE

as a leader, contributor, and/or potential applicant or provider. Time and space do not permit a deep dive as to how to craft an elevator pith or brand statement, but try this quick exercise to create your IMPACT STATEMENT. In other words, what is your personal/professional life intention?  

Provide at least 3 responses to the questions below. Next, within those responses, circle the BEST or MOST CONSISTENT answer.

• What do you VALUE?
• What do you do BEST?
• What do you want to be KNOWN FOR?

Using your answers, craft a short IMPACT STATEMENT that will provide a FOCUS to your powerful personal/professional intention. Just to provide an example, where I land on this exercise is a focus on Learning, Problem Solving, and Helping Others Be Successful; thus; my statement reads - “I learn and teach valuable lessons that help solve worthy problems so that others can be successful.”

Brand Affinity (Promise) – lastly, your Brand Affinity is your Brand Promise. What you commit and promise to BE, KNOW, and DO every day and all the time. This is a promise or collection of promises you keep for your team, your clients, and your current or future employer. A word of caution, you need to be confident and crystal clear on these promises because when you make a promise, you create an expectation. When you keep a promise, you solidify a powerful and influential brand for (Your Name Here) Incorporated! To help you identify those key commitments that will capture your Brand Affinity, wrap your thinking around the following and then consistently act upon the answers.

What do I have the “bandwidth” to do really well all the time?

What do other people come to me for time and again because they know I will always deliver?

What do people seek my counsel on or for?

What am I always asked about because I know a lot about it?

What can I do that not many others can?

What do you feel most responsible for?

What would help other do even if you never got paid for it?

Your personal brand shows up in a lot of places. It appears on your resume or CV, your LinkedIn or other social media pages, in what others say about you, and what you say about yourself. The way you control the message is based largely on how you carry yourself, how your treat others, how you approach your work, and how you invest in your continued personal and professional development.  

I understand that you may be uncomfortable promoting yourself, but this is not about shameless self-promotion. It is about serving others well and the only way they will know that you can, is to present a very accurate but visible message. It is you we are looking, hoping, and waiting for. All I am asking is that you make it easier for the rest of us to find you!

As always if I can help you and the people you associate with Get Better, Be Ready and LEAD OUT LOUD, I invite you to contact me.

Yours in leadership,

Bill Faulkner

Independent Coach, Speaker, and Trainer with the John Maxwell Team ^TM

Email = bill@outloudinc.com

Visit our website at: www.outloudinc.com

For more information on the John Maxwell Team, please visit

http://www.johncmaxwellgroup.com/williamfaulkner/

Feel free to “LIKE” our FB Page www.facebook.com/outloudinc

As a leader, your words are heavier (make sure they are worth their weight in gold!)

Sometimes I am just amazed by what I hear leaders say. Sometimes client will share with me an interaction and I am just incredulous that a grown-up person actually said that in their outside voice. I once heard that a leader’s words weigh a thousand pounds which has me thinking out loud that we need to make sure our words are leveraging people up and not weighing them down!

Let’s face it, whether you like it or not or whether you want to believe it or not, when you are in a leadership role, your words simply carry more weight. Our words and other communications have more influence and are amplified thus the whole premise of my theme of Leading Out Loud! We need to understand that often our teams have a difficult time distinguishing between a mandate or just a suggestion. This is why Jim Collins in his book Good to Great, encourages us to specifically state what is a “soft opinion” or a “hard statement”. Very often a leader may think they are just thinking out loud or brainstorming an idea all of sudden find their teams scrambling to implement an idea that was originally meant to be just an idle thought.

The simple fact is that leaders who are effective are so because they effective communicators – there is just now way to divorce the two. They communicate to their teams in both written and verbal formats in a way that allows their teams to not dread an email or voicemails from you. Crazy as it sounds, they actually look forward to interacting with you! There are thousands of books, articles, podcasts, etc. focused on executive communication but allow me to provide 3 simple rules of thumb:

KEEP IT CLEAN – now I am in no way advocating a “thought police” mentality but you have to admit that modern vernacular has gotten a bit casual these days. I believe that teams respect leaders who have the self-control and emotional maturity to not resort to four-letter words when things get tense, or they are frustrated. Further, such discipline can go a long way to insure and model appropriate team interactions so that there is never a question of harassment or bullying. Besides, you’re not twelve anymore. I think it is time for our words to evolve out of highschool.

KEEP IT NEUTRAL – this does not mean that you cannot have an opinion about work related matters. In fact, as a leader you should have some definitive thoughts about vision, strategy, and execution. When it comes to very personal issues such as religion or politics, however, this is a domain where you need to tread very carefully. These areas are very personal to individuals since they reflect their core values. As a leader you need to respect that and ensure team members respect their peers. We need to make sure that no one on a team is marginalized for their beliefs. All forms of diversity are important including the diversity of beliefs and the pluralism of ideas.

KEEP IT POSITIVE – as Kouzes and Posner share in their seminal work, The Leadership Challenge, one of the most important jobs of a leader is to create hope. There is nothing worse than having a leader who is constantly critical. They may think that is an effective strategy, but it really has just the opposite effect of discouraging team members from doing their best work because they nothing they do will ever be good enough. Granted, if a team member’s performance is suffering you need to address that, but you also need to make sure you are not the cause of it! Even on the organizational level, it is vital that leaders remain hopeful especially when challenges are mounting. It may not seem like much, but time and time again one of the key elements of victory or defeat is a hopeful and positive attitude. Hope can truly be an “odds beater”!

Even in today’s faster than light world of digital communications, words still matter. In fact, I would propose that they matter even more since now you can never take them back due to the fact they are stored indefinitely and shared instantaneously. How many times how you read that a celebrity or politician had to “walk back” a statement with a completely disingenuous “this was taken out of context” rationalization?

The point is as leaders, our words carry weight. Every moment of every day we therefore have a choice. We can intentionally use our words to weigh people down OR we can use them to leverage people up. In fact, I would go so far to say that if we are not doing one, we are doing the other because there is simply no such thing as a neutral interaction! I know that many of you have hearts of gold and you are leading for all the right reasons, now just make sure your words are too!

As always if I can help you and the people you associate with Get Better, Be Ready and LEAD OUT LOUD, I invite you to contact me.

Yours in leadership,

Bill Faulkner

Independent Coach, Speaker, and Trainer with the John Maxwell Team ^TM

Email = bill@outloudinc.com

Visit our website at: www.outloudinc.com

For more information on the John Maxwell Team, please visit

http://www.johncmaxwellgroup.com/williamfaulkner/

Feel free to “LIKE” our FB Page www.facebook.com/outloudinc